La Vie en Bleu
by S. Moncher
Summary: War changes everything. For some living in Paris, the only fixed point in an ever-changing world are the cabarets and nightclubs. But how can the cabarets, worlds unto themselves, with their smoke-filled rooms and their wanton chorus girls, provide any stability? As the Nazis invade and the world turns on its head, Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, and Rachel Berry may just find out.
1. Chapter 1

Kurt Hummel tapped his finger anxiously against his shot glass, a habit he'd picked up as a young boy in Munich. He tapped his fingers on whatever he could - at present, a shot glass - when he became impatient. Right now, he wasn't just impatient; he was nervous too.

War had broken out just a few months earlier, in September. All Europe had been in crisis ever since, and now that sense of emergency had invaded The Blue Swan. Usually the nightclub, a small hole in the wall cabaret, managed to avoid the trials of the outside world - "leave your troubles outside," Santana Lopez, the MC, would proclaim each night to the same twenty people. This time, hwoever, it seemed the outside had creeped through the cracks in the walls and into the once jovial world of The Blue Swan.

So that was why Kurt was both impatient and nervous. Impatient because he needed his drink refilled and nervous because the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

Finally, he got a waiter's attention. "Ecusez-moi, monsieur, je voudrais commander une autre bouteille." The man, a frumpy little Parisian with a dark and crooked nose, huffed off to get Kurt another bottle of Schnapps.

Waiting for what seemed like an inordinately long amount of time for his Schnapps to arrive, Kurt tried to distract himself with the onstage entertainment. His effort to amuse himself was fruitless. The performer onstage was just a skanky girl, no more than nineteen, her eyelids heavy with false eyelashes and her teeth yellowed from too many cigarettes. Kurt caught her hooded eye and she winked at him. The German man remained unfazed. "Just a girl," he thought.

That was the problem with nightclub entertainment, Kurt mused to himself, still waiting for his Schnapps. It was always geared towards straight men. Always some girl, never very old, her face overdone with makeup, trying to entice men with some sultry cabaret performance. To be frank, it sickened Kurt. But then again, he'd never been one for women. Still, he thought, even if he had been straight he wouldn't have wanted any of those girls they put onstage in the nightclubs and cabarets of Paris. He would want someone classy and elegant - perhaps Wallis Simpson? But she would divorce if you asked her to pass the salt, plus now she was "in love" with the former King of England.

It was at that moment, thinking about the Duke of Windsor, that Kurt saw another man, younger than himself, sitting in the corner of the club. The man had austere eyebrows and his hair was haphazardly gelled back - both, incidentally, were flecked with various colours of paint - but it was his eyes that most interested Kurt. Even from this distance he could tell they must be beautiful. And though he now used them to gaze disinterestedly at the girl on the stage, Kurt could also tell that his were the sort of eyes that might be used to undress Venus herself and gaze upon her true and immortal form. In short, they were the eyes of an artist.

Resolving that the waiter had quit or otherwise decided not to bring Kurt his schnapps, the young man got up and walked to the corner table. When he arrived, the other man turned his gaze on Kurt.

"Bonjour," said Kurt.

"Bonjour," said the man, and even from that one word, Kurt could tell where he was from.

"You are British?" asked Kurt.

"Er, yes. And you're not French, are you?"

"No. I am from Munich," said Kurt in his tidy but strong German accent. Kurt knew six languages and spoke each with a perfect accent, expect for English. That was the only language that, for some reason, he could never quite master and never shake the German from.

"You're rather out of place here then. Aren't all you Krauts supposed to be gathering up in the Rhineland to take over Europe?" It was clear from the tone in which the Brit said this that he cared very little about German politics, but the xenophobia made Kurt smile all the same.

"I have been living here for several years." In truth, he no longer considered Germany his home, and was proud to call France his new country, but few people seemed to care about the alleigances of German expatriates these days.

"Oh, well then." The Brit turned his eyes back towards the stage, where a very short woman in a hideous sweater was singing an American song. Kurt looked expectantly to the Brit. After a moment he looked at Kurt and realised what he was waiting for. "Won't you sit?" he asked.

"Danke," said Kurt, sitting. "My name is Kurt Hummel."

"Blaine Anderson. What do you do, Herr Hummel?"

"I write for Le Temps."

"The newspaper?" The look of surprise on Blaine's face showed Kurt had already surpseed his expectations before even explaining what he did at the paper.

"Ja. I write the collumn on art."

"You're that Kurt Hummel?"

"Ja. Why Do you read my column?"

The look of excitement on Blaine's face wore off suddenly. "Sometimes," he said.

Kurt was surprised by all this. He'd been living in Paris for three years and writing for Le Temps just as long and never before had he met anyone who actually read his collumn.

"Tell me, Blaine Anderson, what is it you do?"

Blaine face fel even more, if it was possible. "I try to paint. Usually I fail miserably. Sometimes I have a startling success, but I always wake up and discover that I hate it. Most of my time I spend walking around Paris looking for inspiration." He said the word like it was fabled gold, often talked about but never realised, and shrugged. "I lead the life of an artist."

"It sounds interesting," Kurt said, sincerely.

"Not really," said Blaine taking a swig from his beer tankard. "Usually I have to get drunk just to stay interested in the world."

Moderate applause broke out in the audience. The short girl in the hideous sweater had just finished singing, and was now running offstage to change, Kurt assumed, for her next number.

"She is good," Kurt remarked, waiting to see Blaine's response. It was muted, if it was there at all.

"I suppose."

"And pretty, yes?"

Blaine snorted at that one. "I couldn't speak on that one. She's not my type."

"Who might be your type?" Kurt asked.

"Someone stronger, and smarter, possibly foreign."

"Maybe a German girl?"

"Maybe," Blaine said coyly. "Or maybe just a German."

"Is that an offer?" Kurt teased.

Blaine laughed. "It is if you want it to be."

Here, Blaine stood, suddenly. He looked down at Kurt, a strange look in his beautiful eyes. "75 Rue de Cardinal Lemoine. Any time you like."

The Briton dropped some notes on the table and pulled a ratty grey coat around him. He glanced once more towards Kurt. A smile broke his lips for just a few moments before it was gone, and soon Blaine followed its lead.

Kurt sat in the corner of the room, and thought about what had just happened. He decided it was a good thing, and took a mental note of the address. He stood, finally, and pulled on his own coat. Before he left, Kurt stopped by his usual table. The bottle of Schnapps still wasn't there. Deciding to make a complaint to the Jew manager, Kurt left money for his drinks and stepped out into the city.

The January air was chilly. The city was unusually quiet, for Paris. The hush of both winter and fast-approaching war pressed down on the people and made them lower their voices to talk and laugh and carry on their lives.

A gust of cold air made Kurt draw his coat tighter. So far, 1940 seemed a pretty bad year.

But then again, there was a stranger waiting in his apartment for Kurt to appear, and a cabaret to return to the next night, and the promise of the city was no lesser than when it had nourished Hugo and Wilde and all the Lost Generation. So Kurt walked deeper into the night.

* * *

**Author's Note: I felt maybe this story should have some level of explanation, and the summary just wasn't cutting it, so here is a more in-depth piece.**

**This story takes place during the period immediately preceding and following the Second World War. Although it will certainly move around a bit geographically, it takes place mainly in Paris, and is centred at The Blue Swan, a _fictional_ cabaret in Paris. Things you can expect to see: singing (it's Glee, right?), Americans, Germans, French people, chorus girls, alcoholism, smoking, artists, humour (I like to think I'm funny, but maybe it's not so), and the occasional bit of drama. Things you cannot expect to see: smut. (I cannot write it, and if I could, I would not.)**

**Should you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Please do not contact me about any of these things: spelling/grammatical errors, errors in my French/German/Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/English, and historical errors. I promise to try to get all of these things as accurate as possible but, in the end, I am merely human, and will make mistakes. Hopefully I'll see them, but I don't want you guys to worry about them, so put on your imagination caps and think of it as an alternate universe. (Oh, hey, that's a funny thing . . .)**

**If you've made it this far, you must either have enjoyed my writing or (more likely) you must be an incredibly nice person. Either way, thank you very much.**


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel Berry had known all her life that she wanted to be a great nightclub singer in Paris, France. As a girl, she had read all the great writers of the Lost Generation and dreamed of joining them.

Unfortunately for her, she was born too young and came of age too late. But Rachel Berry never gave up on her dreams, and so at the age of seventeen she had booked passage on a ship to France and made her way to Paris. She arrived at the most inopportune moment possible. Europe was rapidly descending into war and French society was busying itself with preparations for the conflict, and had no time for some silly singing girl.

She arrived in January of 1940. The first ten clubs she stopped at turned her away out of hand. She wasn't pretty enough, she wasn't tall enough, she wasn't French enough - she heard them all. The next ten turned her away with more regret: they would hire her if they had the money, but didn't, times were tough, and they were sorry. Sorry was a word she stopped liking that day, she heard it used so many times. She became immune to its effects and no longer believed those who employed it, knowing as she did that they were not sorry, and that they would return to their lives, blessed already with employment and the realisation of dreams, and quickly forget the small American girl who spoke little French. She did not know then, but soon would, that few of the people who turned her away were living their dreams, just as they did not know, but would soon come to understand, what a terrible mistake it was for them to turn her away that day.

The twenty-first club was an old, run-down establishment. A faded sign that hung loosely over the door read, in its peeling gold leaf, "The Blue Swan." Of course, it said this in French, which is "Le Cygne Bleu," but Rachel did speak very limited French and could hardly make out the letters, so this fact escaped her.

The inside of the building was even dirtier and more depressing than the outside. The walls were a dark and splotchy grey with just the ghost of green paint hiding in the corners. Some twenty tables were packed into the room, beaten chairs stacked on them. A bar, its countertop scratched and stained, leaned on one wall. The air smelt of smoke, sweat, and cheap booze. It was three o'clock.

At present, the cabaret was empty. Rachel called out to see if anyone was there. No response. She recalled that this was Paris, and that most of its inhabitants spoke French, and so called out in this language. Again, no response.

A set of haphazard stairs was plastered onto one wall. The sign above these stairs read "Manager," and Rachel, assuming this meant the same in French as in English, climbed to the second storey.

At the top of the stairs, a door presented itself. Painted on its window in black was the name "Noah Puckerman," and below it, "Manager." The door was slightly ajar, and Rachel could hear soft voices from behind it, so she knocked, gently. She knocked again. Still, there was no response.

Tired of waiting, she opened the door. On a hazy orange couch, its upholstery patched in several places and its overstuffed contents beginning to spill out at the seams, a man of about forty years was lying, suggestively, on a girl of about nineteen. There were shrieks all around.

"Oh! Excuse me," said Rachel, her petite French vocabulary escaping her.

The man picked himself up off the girl, making it evident that she had no top on. "Mademoiselle, what are you doing here?" he asked in French.

Rachel's French had yet to return, but even if it had she would not have been able to understand the man's question. So she settled for a reply in English, assuming - as all Americans do - the foreigners would understand her.

"I'm very sorry, mister. I'm really sorry. I - " but she could not finish her thought before the other girl began a rapid fire assault of French insults on both the man and the American. (This is the standard French response to the American assumption that foreigners will make an attempt to understand them; that is, to disregard the American and hurl French insults at anyone within shouting distance.)

Rachel stood there, shocked by the whole experience. She was not an expert on French insults - indeed, as may have been mentioned before, she hardly spoke the language - but she could tell by the woman's expressions and by the man's reaction that what was being said was not apple pie. In fact, to her, it sounded quite vicious. She had just about made up her mind to go to the twenty-second club when the girl got up off the couch, picked up her shirt and lingerie, and walked to the door. Before exiting she looked at Rachel, scowled at her, and shook her breasts in her face. She then left.

An uncomfortable silence followed hard upon, during which the man, seeming to have forgotten Rachel's presence, walked to a cabinet, took out a bottle of cognac, and poured himself a large glass. He downed it in one go, then poured himself another.

Not wanting to be forgotten like this, but also not wanting to appear rude, Rachel tried to think of a way to capture the man's attention, currently directed out the window and into the street, where the girl from before was parading around, naked. She settled on a small cough.

The man looked at her, his deep-set eyes taken aback for a moment, until he remembered who she was.

"Oh. You're still here," he said in French.

"I'm very sorry to have barged in on you like that. And I'm also very sorry, but I don't speak much French," she replied, still in English.

"You are an American?" he asked in his deep voice. Rachel nodded. "You are very young," he observed."

"I'm seventeen."

"That is very young." He took a drink of cognac. Rachel could see in his eyes, framed by layers of dark rings, that his mind was not in the small office. It was far away, caught in an old memory. Soon, however, this was gone, and he returned to business. "What are you doing here?"

"I was hoping for a job in - "

"We are not hiring," the man yelled. Rachel, not yet recovered from her first shock of the encounter, found herself nearly trembling where she stood.

"Well, could I speak to the manager?"

"I am the manager," he said.

"Oh. You must be Mr. Puckerman, then."

"Oui."

"Sir, I know it's not the best time to be asking for a job, but I've been to twenty other cabarets and nightclubs and none of them would take me. Please, sir, could I have some work?"

"Non. We are not hiring."

"But sir, please - "

"Non." He put his drink down and replaced it in his mouth with a cigarette, which he tried and failed to light. Furiously, he gestured to the door. "Leave. Now."

Rachel turned to go, then stopped. "But sir, it's all I've ever wanted."

Now he looked at her with a genuine contempt. "All you have ever wanted? What do you mean by this? Do you think I care about what you want? Do you? Non. I do _not _care about what you want. Now, please, mademoiselle, leave and go home to America. You will be much happier there, and safer." He turned again to the window, where he could see the girl being arrested by the police for punching a man who had tried to fondle her still-bared breasts.

Rachel, dejected and now hurt, left Mr. Puckerman's office and walked down the stairs. She stopped at the base of them and looked fondly at the stage.

Then, in a move that was at the time inspired only be desperation but which might later have been described as genius, Rachel walked onto the stage. Gazing out onto the empty room and the nonexistent audience, she made a decision and started to sing.

Upstairs, in his office, Noah Puckerman tried to think of ways to get Marianne back for that evening, or for people to replace her in the show. He had decided on sending flowers to her apartment when he realised she would be in jail. Then, he heard singing.

It came from the club downstairs. The voice was sweet and pleasant, but underneath it was the bedrock of pain and truth. The song, too, held a note of sadness and unfulfilled desire in its melody of happiness. But the accent was unmistakably American.

Rachel finished her song and dried her eyes, resolving herself to the eventuality of her failure as an artist. She passed through the hive of tables and out the door. Outside, a frumpy man in a waiter's uniform sneered at her and blew cigarette smoke in her face.

As she was walking away from the cabaret and onto the streets of Paris, a sudden clatter arose from the inside of the building. A moment later, Noah Puckerman, winded from his sprint, emerged from the club's doors.

"Come back here tonight at ten," he wheezed. "If you sing like that you can come back the next night, and perhaps I will pay you." He started back into the building. "Wear something nice," he said over his shoulder.

Rachel returned to her tiny apartment, shut the door, and screamed in ecstasy. Beside herself with joy at the prospect of her dream coming true, she spent the rest of the day in a blur. She decided to wear one of her nicest sweaters - a maroon piece with a cream moose on it - wanting to look good for her Paris début.

Eschewing dinner, she arrived at the club early. She watched the first part of that night's show from the back of the room, its air heavy with smoke. From the moment the Spanish MC - a woman in a white suit who introduced herself as Santana Lopez - arrived onstage, she knew she was in love with the place.

At ten o'clock she went backstage to prepare herself. The task was significantly hindered by the fact that none of the other performers seemed to speak English, and Rachel was sent searching for makeup in the wings. She found the MC, who seemed to speak - or at least, understand - English, but she refused to answer Rachel's desperate pleas for help and instead began rattling off a speech in Spanish. She stopped, and Rachel tried to ask her again where the makeup was, but she silenced her and went onstage.

The introduction was in French, and Rachel understood very little of it. The audience may have shared in her confusion, or it may have been that they were not entirely thrilled with what the MC was selling. Santana ended her speech and gestured grandly towards the wings. Rachel stood, petrified, unsure of what to do. Finally, the sour-faced girl who had been on last gave her a good push, and she stumbled onstage. The MC passed her, and whispered in her ear, "Good luck," before leaving the stage.

Onstage, everything shifted. She looked out at the faces of the patrons, saw their slack jaw expressions, their drunken eyes, their looks of disappointment that she was not another sultry chorus girl. She realised then that they had not misunderstood the MC's introduction. From the back corner, she saw one man eyeing her sweater with skepticism, while the man he was sitting with stole a glance at his new conquest.

Suddenly, she remembered that she was supposed to be performing. She stumbled over to the pianist and handed him her sheet music. Seeing the title of the song, he rolled his eyes and began to play. Rachel began to sing.

* * *

"You can come back tomorrow," Puckerman said to her when she came offstage.

"I was good?" she asked hopefully.

"You were acceptable," he said, though the applause she had received and his expression now combined to tell a different story. "When you come back tomorrow, do not bring that sweater. That sweater will not make me any money. We will have a costume prepared for you."

Rachel didn't quite know what he meant, but she was so glad to have a job she hardly cared.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Puckerman," she said, throwing herself at him and wrapping him in a hug. Her head reached the base of his breastbone.

"Stop this," he said, pulling away, "or I may reconsider."

"Sorry." She extended her hand, adopting a businesslike tone. "Thank you very much, Mr. Puckerman. I appreciate the opportunity." He shook her hand. Unable to keep her happiness in any longer, she broke into a fit of giggling.

"Just come back and sing," he sighed. "And look better. Sex, girl, do not be afraid of it."

* * *

**Author's Note: First of all, let me thank all those beautiful people who left me their reviews of this story. You made me incredibly happy and for that I am greatly indebted to you. I was also very happy to see that you were able to get that the girl in the hideous sweater was in fact, Miss Rachel Berry; hopefully this chapter will have shed more light on her role in the story. The second order of business relates to the timing of updates in the future. I will make an honest effort to make my updates regular in their timing, but do not expect them to be as close together as these first two chapters were. They were intended to whet your appetite, and hopefully it hath been whetted. Also expect the quality of future chapters to improve at least somewhat after I get my reader to give me her recommendations.**

**Once again, thank you so much for reading.**


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